I'm writing a Mac (desktop) application that's going to do a lot of screen scraping.

What I want to achieve is to have an ability to emulate a web browser session (form authentication, multiple form submissions, and file downloads in one session) but I do not want to show it to the user.

I found WebKit but from what I read in documentation that's for showing content to the user.

I'd love to have sth like Java httpunit.

Important thing for me is to have a decent JavaScript support - those pages support some dynamic content/actions that I want to be able to use.

you're writing a Mac Desktop app and you have no Mac experience, and you want to write an app to process javascript on webpages without showing it to the user. This sounds remarkably like the behavior of a bot, and it sounds like you want something that's going to be beyond your skillset. Have you found any examples of programs that can at least help you get started on the app itself development? Have you found any code that lets you execute javascript without using a browser?
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jcolebrandNov 10 '10 at 19:22

Sure, it is beyond my skill set - that's the part called learning. If you don't push yourself you won't learn. If I found an example I wouldn't ask - I'd read it's code and implement my own version.
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PawelNov 10 '10 at 20:39

I'm aware of couple tools that let's you do a similar thing - as I mentioned httpunit does it (but it's written in Java). There's selenium too (also Java). I'm looking for something native.
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PawelNov 10 '10 at 20:40